1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates to a plate feeding apparatus for transporting stacked printing plates in order from an uppermost plate, and in an inverted state, to a plate takeout unit such as nip rollers.
2. Description of the Related Art
Japanese Unexamined Patent Publication No. 2000-247489, for example, discloses a plate feeding apparatus for transporting printing plates, in an inverted state, to a plate takeout unit. According to this apparatus, a suction point at a leading end of each plate sucked and held by suction pads is moved to coincide with a cycloid formed when a circle having a radius equal to the turning radius of the suction point rolls over the plate surface. Subsequently, the leading end of the plate is pinched by the plate takeout unit.
Such a plate feeding apparatus that transports printing plates, in an inverted state, to the plate takeout unit has an advantage of transporting the plates reliably without occupying a large floor space even when transporting relatively large plates.
In such a plate feeding apparatus, plates are usually stacked with end edges aligned by a stopper. Then, with the plate feeding apparatus that transports the plates, in an inverted state, to the plate takeout unit, when a distance from a plate storage unit to the plate takeout unit is small for the size of the plates, the rear end of a plate will thrust itself in between the end edges of the plates stacked and the stopper, making it impossible to transport the plate properly.
In order to solve this problem, it is conceivable to secure a sufficiently large distance from the plate storage unit to the plate takeout unit in accordance with the size of the plates. However, the increasingly large printing plates used nowadays will result in the entire apparatus occupying a large space.